San Francisco’s Pacific Gas & Electric – devastated by recent wildfires – is looking to bury some 10,000 miles of electric transmission lines over the next decade in order to prevent its often elderly overhead equipment from starting fires, at a cost of $15 billion to $30 billion, according to NBC Bay Area News. The … More Transmission Tales: PG&E Underground, Texas Transmission Autarky, State Interconnection Rules

“Perhaps the single greatest risk to a successful energy transition during the 2020s is the risk that the nation fails to site, modernize, and build out the electrical grid.” That is a conclusion of a major National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report released last Friday (Oct. 19). The report added, “Except where new … More National Academies: No Transmission, No Transition

Despite the vilification and the billions of dollars being spent on alternative supplies of energy, fossil fuels are far from vanquished. Oil and gas are doing well in the U.S., and coal is holding its own. This morning (Oct. 20), Chevron announced it is buying Hess Corp. in an all-stock deal worth $53 billion ($171/share). … More Fossil Fuels Flexing Muscles as Chevron Buys Hess

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday (Oct. 19) moved to make the conversion from direct current based renewable generation seamlessly integrated into the alternating current electric transmission grid. FERC’s new rule, according to an agency news release, “directs the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to develop a suite of new or modified reliability standards that … More FERC Mandates AC-DC Matchmaking

By Henry Sokolski Although it received scant attention, one of the first objects Israel’s military targeted was Gaza’s electrical generating plants. Israel was legally free to do so because it is not a party to Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions — an international treaty that discourages military attacks against civilian assets. In contrast, The … More Guest Commentary: Power Plants, War Targets?

PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest wholesale electricity market, on Friday (Oct 13) proposed major changes to its troubled capacity market to make sure it has enough power to distribute during weather emergencies. The regional transmission operator made two massive filings at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Docket No. ER24-98-000 and Docket No. ER24-99-000 totaling over … More PJM Proposes Capacity Market Reforms

A diverse group of interests including The Nature Conservancy and the Solar Energy Industries Association have agreed on policies to advance large, utility-scale solar photovoltaic power development. The agreement, “Collaboration Agreement on Large-Scale U.S. Solar Development: Integrating Climate, Conservation and Community” and brokered by Stanford University’s Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, is designed to … More Big Solar Gets Big Boost

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last Friday (Oct. 6) rejected a preliminary permit for a large hydroelectric pumped storage project on the Susquehanna River near York, Pa. The commission said the application by York Energy Storage for a $2.1 billion project repeatedly failed to respond adequately to questions the FERC staff raised about the filing. … More Hydro Making Slow-Motion Waves at FERC

NuScale Power has landed a deal with privately-owned blockchain data center developer Standard Power to provide two planned data centers in Pennsylvania and Ohio, 924-MW each, with electricity from arrays of NuScale’s 77-MW VOYGR small modular reactors, 12 for each data center. NuScale’s partner ENTRA1 Energy has the exclusive rights to develop, manage, own and … More Nuclear Merry-Go-Round: NuScale, Vogtle, Palisades

Offshore wind in the U.S. has encountered an economic tsunami. Long-standing power purchase agreements (PPAs) going back years, the financial foundations for nascent wind projects, are cratering. A new U.S. government offshore wind site auction failed to attract substantial interest. On Monday (Oct. 2), Connecticut-based Avangrid, a U.S. subsidiary of Spain’s Iberdrola, announced it was … More U.S. Offshore Wind Faces Stormy Weather